2nd woman at Craigslist rape trial: 'His whole personality changed'

Charles Oliver

Woodstock Police Department

A police photo of Charles Oliver.

A police photo of Charles Oliver. (Woodstock Police Department)

Amanda MarrazzoSpecial to the Tribune

A second woman took the stand in the Charles Oliver rape trial and testified today that he also became threatening and physically abusive toward her when she went to his house to have sex with him for money.

Like the first alleged victim who testified Tuesday, the second woman said Oliver came across as calm and non-threatening when he picked her up in his car but said “his whole personality changed” after the two arrived at his Woodstock home on Jan. 16, 2013.

The woman said Oliver pushed her into a basement room, threw her down and told her he would only let her leave after he did whatever he wanted to do to her. She said he threatened to tie her up to with black straps that were hanging from a bar in his basement. She said he later tried to choke her and became even more outraged when she cut him on his genitals with her fingernail.

Both women said they had arranged to meet Oliver through a Craigslist ad and exchange sex for money, though the woman who testified Tuesday said she had responded to an ad Oliver placed. The woman who testified today said Oliver had responded to her ad.

Oliver, 45, is accused of sexually assaulting eight women. The first of his trials started this week in McHenry County. His attorneys have argued that the women consented because they agreed to have sex with him and that Oliver had no reason to force himself on the women.

Testifying this afternoon, the second woman said that Oliver eventually let her leave and said he would drive her to her car in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Huntley.

But when it appeared Oliver was driving in a different direction, the woman said she jumped out of the car and eventually ran to a nearby church. She admitted she initially lied to police – telling him she’d been abducted from the Wal-Mart parking lot – because she didn’t want to reveal she had arranged to meet Oliver for sex.

The following day, she said, police arrived at her northwest suburban home and told her they knew she had not been abducted because she they had seen surveillance video that showed her willingly getting into a car in the parking lot.

While the woman, an alleged victim in a second case pending against Oliver, sat in the witness box, jurors watched a 5-minute video of Oliver having sex with her in the bedroom of his Woodstock home.

The woman, now 23, can be heard on the recording saying, “no," "stop," "I'm sorry" and "you're scaring me."

At one point, she asked him, “What are you doing?” and says he is breaking the ground rules that they set for their sex-for-money arrangement and engaging in acts to which she did not agree.

"This is the first time I did this and this is how it turns out," she is heard saying.

Oliver responds: "Yeah, welcome to the club."

She tells Oliver he is scaring her and he responds, "It's alright to be scared."

He later tells her: "I don't have to listen to you. I paid you.”

Still later in the video, he asks: "Do you want me to tie you up and take you downstairs and do it the other way?"

She responds: "No, no I'm OK. I don't want to go downstairs."

The final words heard in the video are Oliver telling the woman: "I've got the plates to your truck and I'm gonna run it and hunt you down."

On cross examination, defense attorney Mark Facchini pointed out that the woman had not been forced into Oliver's car when he picked up her at Wal-Mart and that she had been willing to go to his home with him and have sex for money.

Facchini pointed out that the woman never called police on her own and that when she did make a report, she told several lies, including at first saying she had been kidnapped.

But later she said she told prosecutors she lied because "I was scared that he was the police."

The woman who testified today said Oliver had told her he was a police officer; the first woman said Oliver told her he was a firefighter and knew a lot of police officers and would get her in trouble if she reported him.